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How To Landscape Front Yard

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How To Landscape Front Yard

Start Up Front If you’re wondering where to start a landscape transformation, look no farther than your front yard. It’s the first thing that you see driving up to your house, and you can wow guests before they even enter your home. Just remember that curb appeal is important, but no matter how pretty your landscape is, it needs to be functional. Hardscape First Do all of your hardscaping projects before you set out any plants. Hardscaping can include a porch, sidewalk, driveway, parking areas, decks, fencing, patios and arbor. These projects usually involve construction, which can compact your soil or damage turf and plantings, so it’s important to complete any heavy work before plantings begin. Toil In the Soil When it is time to garden, amend your soil by adding organic matter such as finely shredded pine bark, peat moss, mushroom compost or leaf mold before setting out plants. Loose, fertile soil will encourage root growth on new plantings and allow them to become established quickly. Clearly define your turf and bed lines. First use a garden hose to lay out your bed lines then use orange spray paint to mark the lines. Plant Next to Your House Your foundation planting should embrace your house and not cover it. Low-growing shrubs or groundcover should be planted in front of low windows and porches. Larger rounded shrubs or small trees work well planted on the corners of your home. These larger plants will frame up your house and help soften the box-like structure. Remember to create a small bed in your front yard for annual color. Flowers will add instant charm. Move to the Back Your backyard should be an outdoor living area to enjoy. If you need privacy, install wooden fencing or large shrubs around the perimeter to create walls. Decks and patios make great sitting or dining areas when the weather’s appropriate and they create a nice overflow for guests during parties. Gather Around the Fire Grilling stations or outdoor kitchens can be used to cook your meals and not heat up the kitchen. Fire pits and outdoor fireplaces are very popular and allow you to enjoy your yard even when there’s a little chill in the air. Both of these options make for easy entertaining or a fun family activity. Wants and Needs Consider your options and the space you will need. If you have a sunny backyard you might consider putting in a kitchen garden where you can grow a few herbs or vegetables. Just be sure the area you choose receives several hours of sun. Do you need a children’s play area? If so, position it where you can see it from your deck or patio to keep a watchful eye on the young ones. A Little on the Side Side yards are often narrow strips that are rarely seen. They can be a good place to house your utilitarian needs. Garbage cans, firewood, storage and garden sheds often work well tucked into your side yard. If you have dogs it might be a good place to install a dog run. You’ll probably need a walkway on at least one side of your house so you can easily navigate from the front of the house to the backyard. Choosing the Right Plants Before planting anything, study your landscape. See where the sun rises and sets. Some plants love the morning sun but will not tolerate western sun. Consult with a local garden center about the plants that you intend to use and know their needs. Plants that need full sun such as herbs, vegetables, roses and many bedding plants require five or more hours of sunlight, so make sure to design your areas appropriately. How Big? Know a tree or shrub’s ultimate size before you put it in the ground. A small yard is not a good place for trees such as river birch, red maples, sugar maple, oaks or magnolia. Trees such as Japanese maples, crepe myrtles and redbud would be better suited for little landscapes. Avoid planting brittle trees such as river birch or silver maples next to your house or close to parking areas to avoid damage from falling limbs. Plant Shapes and Textures Add some design elements to your landscape by playing off the shape and texture of plants. Use fine-textured plants that have small leaves or needles next to bold-textured plants that have large leaves. Upright linear growing plants can be positioned next to round or low-growing plants to create interest. Finishing Touches Adding containers, hanging baskets and window boxes is a great way to incorporate a little more color into a landscape. A large planter or grouping of containers placed by your front door will create an inviting entrance. If you have several planters use a common plant or color in each of them for repetition and continuity. Too many colors combined together can become chaotic looking. Incorporating Your Personality Add your personal touches to your garden. You can do this with garden art, statues, water features, a birdhouse or architectural fragments. Use low-voltage night lighting to highlight these items, but also position lights along walkways to make maneuvering after dark easy and safe. Maintenance To keep a beautiful landscape it must be maintained. Keep new plantings watered and mulched. Mulch makes a landscape look finished but it also helps soil retain moisture and keeps weeds in check. Work on your landscape but also enjoy it. Your outdoor areas should be an extension of your home. A beautiful and functional landscape makes your house more appealing and will increase its value.

How To Landscape Front Yard

Fairy-Tale Effect A whimsical design, a white picket fence and a sweet and well-manicured lawn design make this front yard seem straight out of a children’s book. Pretty pinks and purples coordinate perfectly with the colorful home. Woodsy Retreat When working with a house as beautiful and detailed as the home shown here, the landscaping can be as simple or as ornate as you like. Evergreens are a good choice for year-round landscaping. Design by HGTV fan babycates Country Cottage An open gate invites you into this idyllic home. The winding stone pathway leads you through the front yard, allowing you to take in the lovely trees and grasses throughout. Rocky Front The theme of this stone and terra-cotta house is carried through to the landscaping with the huge boulders and natural foliage. The simple, earthy look is peaceful and low maintenance. Design by Lori Dennis Traditional Charm Simple yard decor, such as an antique iron gate and perfectly placed vegetation, gives this house a country estate quality. A circular driveway amidst the landscaping makes this classic home a great place for entertaining. Design by HGTV fan On_the_east_twin Potted Up Incorporate containers in your front yard landscape so you can easily change your plants as the seasons progress. Buy seasonal plants when the time comes and enjoy them without having to plant months in advance. Design by Virginia Rockwell Floral Delight The neutral color of this Spanish-style home makes a perfect backdrop to a yard full of colorful flowers. Bright colors pop in flower beds and window boxes against the home’s facade. Down on the Farm There is nothing fussy about this front yard. A pop of pink surrounded by a bed of greenery gives a casual and pretty look with minimal upkeep. Design by Virginia Rockwell Elevated Appeal Cascading layers of bright flowers and deep-green shrubbery flow from the front porch of this quaint suburban home. As guests stroll up the stairs, each new level is as lush and inviting as the last. Design by HGTV fan On_the_east_twin Whimsical Greenway The path leading up to this home’s covered entrance is lined with tall green grasses, ferns and bushes. The owners created a personal forest in the front yard filled with cohesive plants and just begging to be visited by a family of sweet bunnies. Design by Virginia Rockwell Practical Plantings The deer-resistant plants in this elaborate front yard garden are both attractive and practical, ensuring the garden is welcoming to human visitor, but not so much to critters. Design by Katrina Leonidov Fairchild From: Katrina Fairchild Small Spaces With very little front yard to work with, the owners of this well-decorated home opted to show off their green thumbs with large window boxes. By allowing the multicolored flowers to drape low along the house, they really take advantage of every available space. Design by HGTV fan kmphelps

How To Landscape Front Yard

Creating an Attractive Front Every house facade and site have visual assets and liabilities. The well-done front yard highlights the pleasing points and masks the poor ones. All the elements of good design come into play as you arrange your component parts for the ideal front yard. But don’t be put off by the aesthetic terms — balance, scale, unity, and the like — used by designers. All are largely a matter of common sense. If a scene pleases your eye, then it’s probably well designed. If your house needs or will adapt to your desire for a special theme garden like colonial, cottage, Oriental, or Spanish, the look must begin in the front yard. Themes are successful only if you unify all the garden aspects carefully. You’ll also need to determine if your preference is for, and your site demands, a formal or informal landscape. Formal settings include strong geometric lines and architectural features, clipped hedges, and uniformly shaped plants and beds. Informal designs are marked by free-flowing, natural-looking elements. Generally, informal home styles and sloping land require less rigid landscapes. Formal houses and flat land can be treated either way. To achieve balance in a landscape, try to position elements so they give equal weight — through size, color, texture, or other aspects — to each side of a scene. How formal this weighting should be again is dictated by style of house and personal preference. Symmetrical houses often look best when each feature and plant is duplicated on the opposite side of a front walk (as long as the walk isn’t too long or too narrow). Most houses, though, are asymmetrical, since they have only one garage or drive. In this case, balance is more subtle. Perhaps a tall tree belongs on the side opposite the driveway. Achieving pleasant scale — or, keeping elements in proportion to each other — is also subtle, since plants must grow before you can be sure. Choose plants that will complement your home’s size at maturity, as well as some plants that will grow fast enough to quickly make a mark. Don’t let anything dwarf your house. The design principles of unity and simplicity often go together. Several plants of the same color and kind have more effect and give greater pleasure in a landscape than one each of several types. Use only enough variety for sustaining bloom and adding visual interest. If you want more types of plants, say for continual harvests of many kinds of fruit, try combining plants with similar or at least compatible shapes, textures, and foliage or bloom colors.

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